Dreaming of Death Note: 10 - Falsifying Information

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"Hey, who the hell are you, and what do you want with Michiko? Why are you hanging out outside her house? Are you some kind of pervert?" the young but gruff voice shouted from behind Shikako. Spinning to face him, Shikako realized she hadn't even felt this person approaching. In fact, it felt as if he wasn't even there still, though she could clearly see his outline in the dark as he rode closer on a bicycle, passing under a dim street light. She knew that voice, though.

"I'll call the cops on you! You know this is the chief of police's house? You'll be hanged for sure!" he rode up closer, coming to a halt awkwardly on his hefty green mountain bike that looked really out of place in the city. Hideo glared at Agent Sora from under his baseball cap, his black hair tied back in a long tail sticking out beneath it. He made as if he was trying to fish a phone out of a button-up pocket in his coat that was too stubborn to unbutton. He blended into the darkness almost as well as Shikako did, wearing a camouflage print in dark navy blue, black and grey. It almost looked like he was wearing pajamas, and considering what time of night it was that wouldn't be surprising, though he had a thick black coat on over it all.

"And who might you be?" the agent asked, voice level and eyes assessing. The cigarette smoke still swirled around him in an evanescent mist.

"I'm the angry boyfriend that's gonna kick your lily ass! That's all ya need to know. Now get the hell away from Michiko!" Giving up on getting the phone out, Hideo pointed angrily at the agent instead, glaring for all he was worth.

"Hideo! I appreciate the thought, but I really don't need you to-" he turned to Michiko at her admonishment, a toothy grin on his face.

"Why not?" He interrupted her, "I'm a good boyfriend, aren't I? If you've got some kinda creepy stalker, I'll kick him to kingdom come!"

'You're one to talk, Hideo. Wait, I could use this...'

Michiko internally sighed, remembering that this was probably her own fault. 'You go on one accidental date with a guy and he never lets go.' she thought.

It had really been a misunderstanding, and the offer to 'Go catch a movie with me!' was misinterpreted by her when she thought that he was inviting the room at large, with how loud he always was. They'd been sitting in the classroom, right after the bell rang to signal the end of class, and everyone had been gathering their stuff together to leave. Being the class clown, he was always making a ton of noise and gaining a lot of attention. That was a few months ago.

She'd gone, enjoyed the movie, and bought them some popcorn though he'd insisted on paying for her movie ticket. It hadn't even struck her as awkward when it was just the two of them because people have lives, right? Sure. Their other friends from class were just busy, that was all.

Then after it all was said and done he'd walked her home. She thought they were having an interesting conversation, a back and forth about 'the way the movie should have ended' with ever increasingly impossible outcomes, but he suddenly tried to make a move on her. She had turned him down, gently.

Well, actually she'd slammed the door in his face after thanking him for a fun night. (It had been a good movie, after all.) Why slam the door? Well, it was because he'd given her a quick and unexpected sloppy kiss that made her back away and wish to find a breath mint. He followed up the next day by insisting on telling everyone at the college he was dating her, and she was off limits. It was sort of annoying, and she'd gone to great pains to end those rumors.

He still sent her flowers on occasion, to her mother's delight. Her siblings kept asking when she was going to marry him already, as he'd shown up at their house multiple times before, always insistently asking for her. (She closed the curtains on the windows, to Light's constant snickering.)

Really, it was a pain. Considering the circumstances- her sneaking out at night without her assigned shadow to tail her- she could make it look like she'd had a romantic rendezvous, and maybe they'd overlook it...

"Hideo, he's a friend of my brother's, ok? He was just spending the night here." She tried to ease the situation by giving him the accepted lie.

"Wait, I heard rumors about that, that your brother's been seeing some guy... He always was dating girls before, but some guy just randomly started going everywhere with him yesterday. I heard he was pretty much hanging off of him, with how close they were! The girls at the school saw! I didn't know it was true!"

There goes Agent Sora, blushing, once more. He stuttered as Hideo looked him up and down, then growled out, "Stop that, you brats!"

"Oh, so you're not Light's boyfriend? Guess I was mistaken, sorry! Hey, you're not after my girl, are you? I'll fight you." At Hideo's loud outburst, Michiko rubbed her temple, feeling a headache coming on. Hideo raised his fists in a mock battle pose.

"You aren't fighting anyone. Seriously, calm down." Michiko slipped off her sleek black road bike and walked it over to Hideo. Then, keeping Agent Sora in her peripheral vision and making sure he could see them clearly, she reached over and gave Hideo a peck on the cheek. "Go home, knight in shining armor."

Shocked, and visibly elated, the young man smiled. "HAH! Yes. Ok. Love ya, night!" He slipped his feet back onto the pedals and hurried away into the darkness, 'whooping' so loud that he probably woke the whole neighborhood.

'Now, did it work...?' she turned a sheepish grin towards Agent Sora. "Sorry?" She asked, hesitantly, at his narrowed gaze (his cheeks were still red, probably since it was so cold out.) She continued, "Oh come on, am I supposed to have a chaperone when meeting my boyfriend? Seriously?"

The man sighed, dropped his cigarette, and snuffed it out with his heel, "Get inside already. Lover boy needs to clear it with us before you two take off. And yes, you need a chaperone. This is an ongoing investigation, after all, not a high school prom. I thought you were more mature than that. If you're innocent, take this seriously."

"Sorry!" she bowed as she walked past him and locked her bike up in the garage next to the others.

'Crap, now I feel like I owe Hideo one. Then again, he's been intentionally irritating, so... I guess it evens out.'

As she stepped into her bedroom, Agent Rei looked up from a cellphone she was texting on. Her tired voice pierced the darkness like a knife, "You're up at an insane hour. You make a habit of this?" her phone beeped as she hit send. Probably telling L that their run-away was back.

"No, not really. Just had to meet my boyfriend. His name is Hideo." It's not like she was sharing his last name too, and it wasn't really a secret, but she cringed at having said that, anyway.

Absentmindedly, Agent Rei began texting a new message, not noticing the girl's agitation. "Don't you have school today?"

"I actually have work, and that's not until later. I can sleep awhile until then. It's Light that has classes in the morning, then we attend a class together later at night, after I'm done with work." she informed her.

The woman sighed, "Fine. Go to bed. I could hear him from up here."

She smirked, the boy was very loud. "Sorry, did he wake you?"

"No, Agent Sora did. He came in after seeing you were gone. Somehow I slept through that. I'm not a heavy sleeper, so you're quite the quiet one, aren't you?" she looked up as her phone beeped once more, then put it away into her bag near her sleeping bag. "Sora said I wouldn't wake for anything, he actually had to slap me to wake me."

"Wow, rude awakening." Michiko yawned, tossing her coat onto the chair beside the computer. She climbed right into bed, not caring what she was wearing, leaving her backpack on the floor beside the bed as she did so. She'd already stuffed her winter gloves into the pocket of her work jacket downstairs, when she'd come into the house.

'The slap broke the genjutsu.' she mused.

The woman looked at her carefully, her gaze just as assessing as the other agent's. "Why do you need your backpack to meet with your boyfriend?"

The lie was instantaneous, and totally believable, "We're classmates. He wanted to borrow my notebook."

"Oh, I see. You two do a lot of 'borrowing' of your 'notebooks', is that what kids call it these days?"

"Hey!" Michiko tossed a spare pillow at her. The agent ducked it with a grin.

Michiko remembered something amusing to verbally throw back at her, "And didn't Agent Sora 'borrow' Light's 'notebook,' huh? I think he did..." she said, teasingly.

"Oh, shush. I want to get some sleep here. I'm not awake enough for this." Rei fell back into her sleeping bag, her dark hair falling like a curtain to hide her face.

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"I deliver them on my bike, you know." Michiko said as she slipped her shoes on. The two women were heading out the door, to go to Michiko's workplace. Her dad was with Ryuzaki per usual, and her sister and mom had gone out shopping together to try to lift Sayu's spirits and get her out of the house for a while, meanwhile Light was still at class with Sora. Pleasantly, Shikako hadn't felt chills all day.

"Yes, I've had one brought over. Ryuzaki sent me a road bike to use. Actually, he said it's mine to keep, so I hope it works for me. I'll keep up with you."

Michiko's eyes were mocking, as well as her tone as she eyed the other woman speculatively, "Can you though? I ride pretty fast. I have a reputation to uphold. Fastest Flying Pizzas this side of town."

"That's quite a reputation."

"Sometimes mild is good." she said in a dry tone. At her strange comment, Agent Rei shrugged, not knowing what to make of that.

"Do you know what 'parkour' is?" the girl asked innocently.

"I've heard of it."

"Then this will be fun."

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"This was not fun. When you said 'Fastest Flying Pizzas' I didn't realize you meant actually 'flying,' by the way." Agent Rei could handle a lot of things. High speed chases were no problem, on foot, or in a car. Randomly jumping off of busy overhead traffic ramps on a speeding bike with nothing but air as a buffer between yourself and crashing into blind oblivion was a bit overdoing it.

"This. Girl. Is. Crazy." The agent informed her she was going to text Ryuzaki and inform him of this. In those exact words. She felt it was pertinent, in all ways. As soon as her lunch settled in her gut, once more, that is. Plus, she needed two hands with which to text. This only made Michiko laugh. "This was most certainly not fun."

Shikako's blood was pumping as the exercise was doing wonders for waking her up. "It was for me. I can't believe you actually made that jump across the roof of the sedan!"

"You did that on purpose? That's someone's car, you know! It will get scuffed up, do you have insurance?" the agent glared at her charge knowingly. "Even more important, does your workplace?"

"Meh. Who knows? By the way, that thing's been parked there for ages and the owner doesn't care if it gets banged up." Michiko rolled her dark eyes, "Been there, talked to that guy, brought him a pizza for the trouble. I do that now and then, and he's cool with it. All's well that lands well. If he ever moved it I'd have to find a different route, rather than jumping down off that overhead crosswalk. I deliver in this direction often."

"We are never doing that again," the agent said with conviction.

"I do this again tomorrow." Michiko said, checking that she hadn't lost the little yellow envelope out of her pocket after that last jump. She'd gotten it from an old man that smelled of sushi as a tip on her last delivery. She was eager to read what it said, but later, when she didn't have an extra set of eyes on her.

"It's official, I hate this job. Why did I sign up for this?" Agent Rei complained, wobbling to a halt on her pretty red bike slowly. She still hadn't recovered from blindly following in Michiko's wake, at ridiculous speed, just trying to keep her in sight. The girl had thankfully slowed and waited for her guard to catch up. Her reprieve was short lived.

"Race you down the stairs!" the girl shot off like a firework.

"We are not race... stairs?" Rei's voice cracked at the end, but her charge had already vanished headfirst down a winding concrete staircase leading into the subway, cheering at her to keep up. "This is not happening. Normal bikes aren't even allowed down there!"

She was totally messing with her.

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Author's Note: This started out as a much, much longer chapter, and so I broke it into multiples.